Innovative Methods in Studying Target Audiences

      Today, advertising relies on capturing specific demographics’ prime interests and selling what they exactly desire through whatever available means. However, now, it has the possibility in the future to develop ads geared towards the exact individual need and desire. Advertising has the possibility and potential to eventually overtake and target each individual’s personal senses. Advertising pictures are in development to change as people walk by, their images for each personal preference. The ability to persuade a large audience is the key point in selling any advertisement. Careful consideration and analysis of the target audience and testing is crucial to making any product seem believable. Although, advertisements shouldn’t really be seen as tricking the public; they help engage the viewer with innovative and unique features and actually allow the target audience to interact.

      Subliminal advertising supposedly is a persuasive enough advertising ploy to get consumers to buy products that they didn’t really initially have in mind to purchase. However, it’s merely just a combination of the study of demographics and understanding their desires that win people over to buying products. For example, in trying to grasp the attention with the 13-40 aged demographic audience, studies have shown that using famous celebrities or spokespersons usually creates the highest amount of interest for product advertisements. This is because younger people generally tend to want to imitate role models. Many major corporations invest in placing product placement advertisements within not only magazine and newspaper media, but also in the television and movie industry. Usually, product placement advertisements within television and movie media tend to not blatantly promote the products, but hide them within the scenes and among the actors. The strategy to intrigue the mind all relies on entering the human senses with careful placement of the product, usage of color, words and phrases, and both hidden and familiar images.

      Not only does the advertising world want to intrigue you with their carefully compiled campaigns, but they also want to closely view and study their target audiences. Starbucks recently confessed at an OMMA conference that they sometimes monitor blog conversations of customers in order to get a sense of their branding and marketing efforts. These most recent strategies in studying target audiences slightly tread over that thin line of privacy and create slight apprehension for the general public. However, blogs and the internet are an open and free terrain; especially if used in a public and highly commercialized area.

      New forms of technology also allow for a more in-depth study on the target markets purchasing methods. An experiment recently was conducted to test if there is a visible pattern in how customers purchase their groceries. Grocery stores (Wall-Mart, Albertsons, Kroger, and Walgreens) used infrared scanners in the aisles to see how many customers saw the advertisements but did not walk out of the store with those same products they considered buying. Manufacturers that participated in this study were: Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, and Miller. However, the scanners merely counted how many customers turned away and were not set up to understand specific demographics, pertaining to each individual product.

      The future of advertising will rely on innovative and different methods for researching specific target audiences, while utilizing the most modern forms of technology in order to continuously keep society’s interest piqued. Advertisers will continue to try and generate interest to specific demographics through new product promotions, carefully constructed preliminary tests to various groups, and wise decision making with using various multi-medias.  
 

Chloe Leery is a freelance writer and proofreader that formerly worked with senior-level copywriters in the creative advertising industry. She is currently writing for SuccessfulOffice.com, which is a virtual office and call center business hub in the United States.